IM_Ep 58_How to build an LGBTQ+ inclusive brand.pdf
2
Sonia:
And you’ve learned the things to say and not to say and all that good stuff.
Hank:
And I mean, this is the beauty of your podcast, Sonia, like the fact that just week after week
you are delivering the goods to these people to not feel so overwhelmed when it comes to being
inclusive like that.
I, I just love that your podcast exists, hon
estly.
Sonia:
Thank You. Thank you. No, I know that there’s just so much to learn and grow, so if we can
all be doing it together, all the better, right?
Hank:
Yeah, absolutely.
Sonia:
Okay, so what does it mean to be LGBTQ + inclusive as a brand?
Hank
:
It’s a big question, and I think that what I want to start with is this misconception or
misunderstanding of the term LGBTQ + inclusive versus LGBTQ + friendly.
Sonia:
Okay.
Hank:
Because I hear that often, and if we’re being really honest as well, if
you look on Google, you,
if you have like a Google business listing, you can actually tick a box to say that your business is
LGBTQ + friendly.
Sonia:
Really?
Hank:
Now I think there is a difference between being friendly and being inclusive, and I’m sure
that
you’ll have some thoughts on this too. So I’m very curious to kind of just like bounce some ideas off
you as well, because I think like, to be LGBTQ + friendly is to say, you are welcome here. Like you
can come here, that’s fine.
We’ll, we’ll put up
with you almost, you know, like there’s, there’s not, we’ll, we’ll take your money,
we’ll take your business, we’re not gonna make things hard for you. It’s a level of acceptance, but it
doesn’t really extend much further beyond that. Right?
Sonia:
Yes.
Hank:
And particularly in that business context, it, it is very much like, oh, you want to be a
customer? Great. We’ll take your money. We love that. I think the difference in being LGBTQ +
inclusive is that proactive approach to creating safe spaces and e
nvironments and safe spaces and
environments are, you know, that’s not just physical. You know, that’s on your mailing list and on
your website and on your live calls in your podcast.
You know, how are you actually going out of your way to ensure that peop
le in the LGBTQ +
community are feeling safe, seen, and celebrated in your business? And if you can tick off some of
those boxes of safe scenes and celebrate, then I would say that’s being inclusive.
Sonia:
Yeah. Safe scene and celebrated. I love it. And
would you say that safety is the primary need
of people who are part of the LGBTQ + community?
Hank:
Hmm. That’s a real, I don’t know. Like, I think that’s a really good train of thought, whether
it’s the primary need is probably like if we’re talking abou
t, you know, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
and what is, what is the most fundamental thing. Yes, sure. Safety would be it. Yes.
IM_Ep 58_How to build an LGBTQ+ inclusive brand.pdf
3
And maybe this is where it’s like to be LGBTQ+ friendly is, well, no, I don’t even think to be friendly
is to be safe. So I stil
l think to, to offer safety is to be inclusive.
Sonia:
Yeah.
Hank:
But yes, starting at safety would be, would probably be the best place to start, especially if
you’ve not dived into any kind of queer inclusion strategy before.
Sonia:
Yeah. The reason
why I asked that question, I’ve talked to a number of people and I’ve heard
them just talking about like safety just being such an important distinction. Like, if I don’t feel safe,
I’m not gonna go. And as I was thinking about it, it made me think a lot a
bout I’m, I follow a gluten
–
free diet for health reasons. And it made me realize that whenever I’m going to a business or a
restaurant or something, of course, I want it to be good. Of course, I wanna have options.
Hank:
Hmm.
Sonia:
But first and foremos
t, it’s gotta be safe to where I’m not gonna get sick if I eat it. Right? Like,
if we can’t do that none of the other stuff even matters. Right. So that was kind of what made me
think about like, we’ve gotta focus on the primary need that people have from
certain communities.
And not every community has it necessarily, right? But like, there are somewhere there are certain
things like we wanna be consumers, we wanna feel seen.
Sometimes it’s quote
–
unquote, you wanna feel normal, but like at the same time,
there are certain
communities that have got things associated with them that cause that the businesses who want to
be inclusive of them, you gotta solve this baseline thing first and foremost before you can even think
about others.
Hank:
Yeah. I really like the way that you frame that, and I think that’s absolutely right, Sonia. I think
that in order for people to even Yeah. Get over the line of being ready to spend with you, they’ve got
to feel like you are a safe place to spend that mon
ey. Yeah,
Sonia:
For sure. Okay. From your perspective, what’s the difference between performative allyship
and authentic allyship specifically when it comes to the LGBTQ + community?
Hank:
Yeah.
Sonia:
We see this kinda allyship pop up in a lot of diff
erent places, but yeah, I think, like what’s the
difference for you?
Hank:
So I have distilled down, I have a, I have an online course, authentic allyship academy.
And so in that course, I teach this framework of what is authentic allyship, because I thi
nk so often
one of those barriers for business owners and entrepreneurs, and I can’t say anything because what
if I say the wrong thing? Or what if it looks fake or tokenistic? What if it comes across as awkward?
Sonia:
Yeah.
IM_Ep 58_How to build an LGBTQ+ inclusive brand.pdf
4
Hank:
So it’s like I, I
have in conversations with people had to, I, I’ve had to figure out how to teach
people what that benchmark is so they can be the judge themselves rather than relying on me every,
like, almost on a daily basis, I get a, a message from someone on Instagram
, Hey, is this a funny
joke or a homophobic joke, you know,
that they wanna post on Instagram or you know, like, can you
give me advice on this thing that I’m doing?
I’m like, if we can equip people to know themselves, then you know, you don’t have to ask
, expect
me to do free labor. You know, which I’m sure is, you know, something we’ve
probably both
experienced. And,
and so what’s the framework for understanding authentic allyship? And so I would
break it down into three pillars and
Sonia:
Okay.
Hank:
Then, they all start with a, I love the letter A and everything I’m naming these days starts with
an A. So awareness is number one. So that’s taking on that self
–
responsibility of educating yourself,
understanding the issues. It it’s just being in the know
.
Right. Number two is around amplification. So at what point is your business prioritizing amplifying
the voices and experiences and perspectives of the group that you are supporting?
Sonia:
Okay.
Hank:
And so from a queer perspective, that’s like, are
you elevating queer stories? Are you
celebrating, you know, queer events and queer holidays and, and doing it in a way that’s like putting
them at the front rather than
just leading with your logo.
Right.
Sonia:
Okay. Yeah.
Hank:
So amplification is that
second one. And so that final one is action and action is about, you
know if you’re happy to talk the talk, then you also need to be prepared to walk the walk. And you
and I both know Sonia, that allyship is a verb. It’s about doing so
mething, it’s about
showing up,
it’s
about using your own voice. It’s about, you know, where are you putting your, you know, putting
your money where your mouth is.
And so there are so many different ways that this action can play out. And I teach some of those
strategies in my course, but really, like, that’s how I
would sum up is your, you know,
is your pride
campaign authentic? Well, I would ask questions about wha
t work
you have done regarding
awareness, amplification, and action.
Sonia:
Nice.
Hank:
And if you get all three together, then we’re probably somewhere
close to being authentic
Sonia
:
Okay. This might sound like it’s coming from out of left field, but
it popped into my head
and
I don’t want it to pop out.
So great. Yeah.
Whenever you introduced yourself, you said your pronouns were
them. Right. And so most
companies that are collecting information, you know, sometimes depending on whatever company
it i
s, they might have gender on their form or whatever it is.
And it used to always be male, female. And then we started to see males,female, other, and then
we’ve started to see male females prefer not to say like there’s been a number of different things.
IM_Ep 58_How to build an LGBTQ+ inclusive brand.pdf
5
Hank:
Yes.
Sonia:
And I wanted to find out, do you have recommendations for people on what that should look
like and when should they even be asking these types of questions for capture, for data capture.
Hank:
Yeah. I think it’s really important to know why you’re asking that question and whether that
piece of segmentation is relevant.
Sonia:
Okay.
Hank:
So let’s do an example, a little thought experiment, say on this blouse that I’m wearing now,
you can see it, the listeners can’t, but I’m just gonna describe it for a second and say, it’s a very
bright floral blouse that’s got puffy sleeves and I feel an
d look amazing in it. Trust me when I say it.
Sonia:
You do.
Hank:
So, I love to wear clothes that are bright and floral. That is just something that I’ve discovered
in the last six months that really helped me express my gender identity outwardly. I feel
like I’m a
bright and floral person. So
Sonia:
yes.
Hank:
Now when I buy this shirt, I will typically buy this from a quote
–
unquote women’s store or
women’s section of a store.
And if someone is capturing my email address to put onto a list and to, you
know, do some email
marketing to me and they ask me my gender and the option is male or female, well, I’m assigned
male at birth. And if I’m given that binary choice, which is an uncomfortable question for me
to get
asked a lot of the time,
I’ll, I’ll sele
ct male. Cause I’ve only been given one choice. That’s not my
gender, but that is the sex that I was assigned at birth.
Sonia:
Okay.
Hank:
And so what that then means is this company can’t actually market because they’ve obviously
made some choices in th
ere, in their marketing department and, and business model that there are
certain clothes that we market to men and certain clothes that we market to women.
We know, there are data showing that 25% of Gen Z, so this is people under the age of 25, and 20
5%
of gen, Gen Z is expected to change their gender identity at least once in their lifetime.
Sonia:
Wow.
Hank:
And so what that says is that gender is not fixed, and therefore the clothes that we wear are
also not fixed. And that the correlation between t
he clothes that we wear and our gender identity
shouldn’t be so tightly held onto
that a marketing department or,
or a business is willing to lose
marketing to me because they only gave me the option of male or female. So to finish this thought
experiment,
I feel like I’m going on a, a bit of a tangent.
Sonia:
No, that’s great.
Hank:
But I’m, I’m wrapping it up, is I would rather you ask me much more intentional questions that
are more relevant to the thing you’re trying to sell me.
IM_Ep 58_How to build an LGBTQ+ inclusive brand.pdf
6
Are you interested i
n dresses? Are you interested in suits? Are you interested in skirts? Are you
interested in handbags? Ask me those sorts of questions. They are not gendered, they’re gender
–
neutral questions, but you get more insightful information that can then help you s
egment to send
me email marketing that is relevant to things that I might actually buy.
Sonia:
Yeah.
No, I, I love, I love this thought experiment and I think that you, you used the word
intentional in choice, those two words. And those are at the heart
of inclusive marketing. For me, it’s
all about intentionality in choosing who you’re going to serve and who you’re, who you’re not. Right.
Because the idea, the expectation isn’t that people are gonna serve everyone.
That can often be a very tall order. Ho
wever, in a lot of instances, people don’t make choices. And
because they’re not making a choice, they don’t realize that they really are. They’re, and, and they’re
not being intentional about making a choice. They do things like what you were expect sayin
g,
whereas you can be pushing someone away because you’re asking questions in a way that doesn’t
make people feel seen or like they belong.
And you just have the opposite impact. So instead of trying to understand more about them not
choosing or making a c
hoice about how you’re gonna ask these questions or what information you’re
gonna collect can have an impact on the way people feel as they’re going through your customer
experience.
Hank:
Totally. And I just want to kind of jump in and add tha
t you made
that comment around,
obviously, you know, businesses and brands can’t market to everyone and it’s very smart to market
to a niche, but are you asking the question of, am I marketing to everyone in my niche or not?
Sonia:
Yeah.
Hank:
Because I might not n
ecessarily fulfill a demographic, you know, understanding of what you,
who you think you’re marketing to, but it’s highly likely that I do fulfill the psychographic needs that
you are marketing to.
Sonia:
Yeah.
Hank:
And so have you included me beyond jus
t very binary demographic questions and gone, but
who wants to wear floral bright clothes and are we marketing to everyone who wants to wear those
floral bright clothes
,
and 99% of the time the answer is no, you’re not marketing to me. You’re doing
a very
bad job of that. I do not feel seen or safe.
I mean, one of the brands that I absolutely love, I was down walking down the main street and they,
they have a store and I’ve never walked in. I’ve, if I’ve bought from that brand, I’ve bought it online
and
I’ve got a, I’ve got a very fun gender reveal party coming up. Sonia, I’ve, I’ve come out as non
–
binary and having a big gender
–
bending party.
Everyone’s coming as whatever, you know, dress up, whatever affirms, your gender identity. And
so I know that I w
ant to dress up really, really fun for this. And I was thinking about this brand and
maybe I’ll buy something brand new from them and I couldn’t walk in the store because it’s got like
literally on the front window, women’s fashion.
And I go, I just don’t
feel, you know, comfortable in that space. And Right. It’s very easy for them to
make just some small changes and then maybe I would’ve walked out with a $300 dress. You know,
like, it’s just,
IM_Ep 58_How to build an LGBTQ+ inclusive brand.pdf
7
Sonia:
yeah.
Hank:
Yeah. So, I don’t know. I’m just like bri
nging in some examples
from very recently in my life.
But, you know, then I walked down the road and there was this beautiful vintage secondhand store
and I walked in.
And what I love about secondhand shopping, aside from the fact that it’s, you know, a m
uch more
sustainable way of buying clothes is the clothing is not sectioned off by gender. You know, like the,
the store is the store and there’s no labels anywhere to say This is men’s pan
ts and this is women’s
pants.
It’s just, these are all the pants an
d
Sonia:
yeah,
Hank:
you just gotta go fishing. And I love that because it doesn’t, it just breaks down some of those
barriers for me. And so I’m flicking through the dresses and the, the shop attendant comes over and
she says, Hey, do you want me to put these dresses in the
change room for you to try on?
And just
that single encounter, I was like, ah, I’d love that, thank you so much. And
Sonia:
great.
Hank:
It wasn’t a big deal for her. She, it was just like, I’m helping you out. Clearly, you’re looking at
dresses, let me
take them off your hands so you can keep looking. And I
found an amazing dress,
Sonia,
and I’m gonna look great on Friday night. It’s gonna look hot.
Sonia:
Oh, I can’t wait to see the photos of everyone. Right. So
Hank:
Yeah. Of everyone. That’s right.
Yeah. It’ll, it’ll be all over my Instagram, that’s for sure.
Sonia:
For sure. Okay. Well, we’ll make sure to link it in so people can go
check it out in the show
notes.
Right. So, okay. Moving along, cuz there’s sti
ll so much to cover within the
LGBTQ+
c
ommunity, there are several different identities that have unique needs and challenges.
It’s kind of like whenever people are using the term bipo, a lot of people who are within the Bipo
community don’t like that term because they’re like, they’re lumping
a bunch of people together who
have like very different needs and experiences.
So should brands be thinking about speaking and serving the different identities associated with the
different letters? Or is it okay for them to take an approach of, we’re sup
porting the community as a
whole and like it’s a community, like kind of, I don’t wanna say lump together, but like, it it, do they
need to be thinking about them as individual or is it okay to do it more like as a whole?
Hank:
I think that the answer to t
hat question is probably very subjective to what resources are at
your disposal.
Sonia:
Yeah.
Hank:
But I think if I were to simplify that down to what’s something that isn’t too overwhelming that
helps me get my head around it is I’m gonna try and paint
a picture for people in their minds that if
you’ve got, we know what a Venn diagram is.
Yes. So we’ve got two circles that kind of cross over
in the middle. And so one circle on one side is gender and then, the other circle on the other side is
sexuality
or sexual orientation.
IM_Ep 58_How to build an LGBTQ+ inclusive brand.pdf
8
Okay. And so if we’ve got cisgender, so people who identify with the gender that they’re assigned
at birth and then heterosexual straight people cross that over and in t
he middle where the overlap
is,
that is, what I would say, c
isgender, heterosexual cis, everyone outside of that little overlap is
part of the queer community.
Sonia:
Okay.
Hank:
I hope I’m describing this well for people who are listening. But that image really distills it
down to there being two brands. Two bra
nds, that’s a poor choice of word, for the marketing podcast,
but I have two buckets.
Sonia:
Yeah.
Hank:
In which when they overlap cis het is the mainstream dominant default.
Sonia:
Yes.
Hank:
Anyone outside that is not mainstream, not dominant, not default. So we can look at it from
how are we speaking to people who are not cisgender? So gender diverse, trans people, intersex
people, that side of the equation. And then how are
we speaking to p
eople who are,
you know, not
heterosexual, so people who are bi people who are gay, that side of the equation. Right. That’s a
very simplistic way of understanding it.
Sonia:
Okay.
Hank:
But I would say if you can apply those lenses of gender and sexuality to the work that you
do, then that’s probably a really good place to start.
Sonia:
Okay. Okay. A
ll right.
Switching gears a little bit, because we are approaching Pride Month.
Hank:
M
m.
Sonia:
And there’s a lot of like Black History Month and a lot of other Heritage Months and
celebrations, I think that people have some mixed feelings about the way in which brands are
engaging. So what recommendations do you have for brands who want t
o, or are thinking about
participating in Pride Month to do it in a way that doesn’t make you all make you feel like please
stop?
Hank:
Mm mm Yeah, I think if we go back to that framework, that authentic allyship framework of
awareness, amplification, and
action, it’s all well and good to just switch your logo colors to be
rainbow.
Sonia:
Yeah.
Hank:
But if that’s all you do
Sonia:
Yeah.
Hank:
Like what level of self
–
awareness have you shown what I just did, lik
e a little icky face, you
know,
for contex
t. And then, you know, what, who are you amplifying in that? What marginalized
voices are you platforming to tell their story and their experience by changing your logo?
Not much. And then what action have you taken? Well, you’ve taken a bare minimum acti
on that
has very little repercussion for your brand. Right.
IM_Ep 58_How to build an LGBTQ+ inclusive brand.pdf
9
So I think it’s just like apply
ing those principles and going,
well, what needs to be addressed within
our brand and our marketing campaign that’s lacking? And it could be starting at that very
beginning
of awareness and go, well you know what, just for Pride month, rather than doing some external
campaign, we’re just gonna do awareness training for everyone in our organization. We’re just gonna
make sure everyone knows the basic LGTBQ + terminol
ogy.
We’re gonna make sure that everyone, you know, we’re gonna, we’re gonna change all our
bathrooms to be gender neutral. Like maybe it’s just understanding and educating your team and
that’s all you do for Pride Month. Maybe you’re not getting a lot of
kudos, but that’s a perfect
opportunity for you to leverage a wonderful
month. Love it. Love June. But,
you know, and so that
could be a starting point for you is great, we’re gonna use this month to educate ourselves.
Sonia:
Okay.
Hank:
If you feel like
you’ve already got that within your company culture, then maybe it’s time to
move to that amplification stage, which is, you know, who are some of our customers who are also
queer and how can we elevate them and their experience with our brand?
And you kn
ow, I teach a lot of stuff around like gathering testimonials and reviews from queer people
and how do you go about like featuring that in, in your marketing, but in doing that you’re saying,
look, we still want to talk about ourselves, but we want to do i
t through that queer lens or through
that qu
eer perspective.
So that would,
that could be another way that you do it just this month we’re just sharing customer
stories and success, success stories from the queer community. And then, the final one in acti
on.
So you could go, great, well we’ve kind of got all our ducks in a row for, you know, how we run things
interna
lly and maybe our marketing is,
you know, got a lot of representation in it.
So now we’re actually gonna say, let’s support the queer communi
ty by running a campaign where
we are donating a certain amount of, you know, profit to this organization. Or we’re gonna, you know,
run a campaign to, you know, lobby the senators from Texas or Tennessee or wh
oever’s banning
drag this week.
You know, or
Sonia:
Right, right.
Hank:
Go to a drag show, that’s an action you can take that doesn’t cost a lot of money. Go take
your whole team to a drag show and support the queer economy. Like yeah, there’s so many
different actions you can take, but I think it’s
, yeah, don’t just, I don’t, I don’t like seeing brands who
put that rainbow flag up and run a campaign th
at’s just like,
we celebrate pride. It’s like,
Sonia:
yeah,
Hank:
but what have you actually done? Yeah.
Sonia:
Do you feel like if you saw a brand
that you were interested in and they didn’t have anything
for Pride Month, do you feel like he would feel some type of way? Or is it not so much because you
don’t really know the other things that they might be doing internally?
IM_Ep 58_How to build an LGBTQ+ inclusive brand.pdf
10
Hank:
Well, I suppose,
you know, for those internal things, you know, you’re reviewing your policies
and making sure that they’re, you know, gender neutral or you’re making sure that you’re, you’re
giving parental leave to everyone and it’s not just like mothers only, you know,
like that sort of stuff.
As you can brag about it, you should tell me about it cuz I’ll like you more if you do.
Sonia:
Yeah.
Hank:
But do it because it’s the right thing to do. Don’t do it because it’s just a, you know, an
inauthentic, performative opportunity.
Sonia:
Yeah.
Hank:
But yes, I, I will, I will absolutely resonate with the brand more when they engage with what’s
happeni
ng in the queer community. But the negative effect of doing it at a performative baseline
level and not actually getting into the meat of what it means
to support the queer community,
then I
might then start questioning, well why did you bother?
Sonia:
Ye
ah. So changing your logo to Rainbow and issuing like a special edition Pride Month
product, but talking about, hey, here’s a policy that we rewrote that is inclusive of the community
and like, you know,
Hank:
Absolutely
.
Sonia:
Otherwise, how would peop
le outside of your
company know about it? So that,
those are the
kinds of extremes. Okay. I like that. Before we start to wrap up, do you have any thoughts on what
brands can do to demonstrate that they are LGBTQ + friendly? Right. Like that’s what that’s
the goal
that they’re trying to
Hank:
Inclusive
Sonia:
get to, right?
Hank:
LGBTQ + inclusive. Yeah.
Sonia:
Okay. So I I Inclusive is the higher level one.
Hank:
Yeah.
Sonia:
Is that what you’re saying?
Hank:
Yeah. That’s what we wanna aspire to. Yea
h. Yeah.
Sonia:
Got it. Thank you for that correction. So what can they do to make sure that they’re moving
beyond friendly to inclusive?
Hank:
So I would say, I mean I feel like there’s, you know, there’s a lot of examples that we’ve
chatted
through tod
ay and,
and there are so many ways that you can analyze your business, review
your business, and go, what can we do?
But there are probably like two really basic places to begin that also then have a really big flow on
effect every decision you make movin
g forward. So number one I would encourage every brand to
write an inclusion statement and make that public.
IM_Ep 58_How to build an LGBTQ+ inclusive brand.pdf
11
So an inclusion statement fo
r me looks like something like,
and I teach, I teach this in my course,
like how to write one that’s also like very in your brand voice, very authentic, speaks to yours, your
value proposition as well.
Like you wanna, you wanna make, you know, make money doing this too. I get that but d
o it
authentically and you’r
e essentially saying, you know,
well, we will support and, and you know, we,
yeah, we celebrate and we support everyone regardless of gender, identity, sexuality, race, age,
religion ability, you know, like make it just explicit
that you aren’t a discriminatory brand.
Sonia:
Yes.
Hank:
I come from a wedding industry background and you know, like people’s body size is a big
thing of discrimination in the wedding industry.
Like, if you are not thin and beautiful, then there are b
rands that don’t wanna work with you. So I
make that explicit in the wedding work that I do like, no matter your body size
Sonia:
Yeah.
Hank:
You’re welcome.
Sonia:
Right.
Hank:
You’ll be safe seen and celebrated. Right.
Sonia:
Right.
Hank:
So an inclusion statement is, is s
omething as simple as that and,
you know, make that really
abundantly clear on your website, put it on your Instagram every, you know, every six weeks, or put
it in the bottom of your emails, like make it part of your cul
ture that you let your customers know that
you’re an inclusive brand.
And then the second thing that I would do is really go back and evalua
te, we touched on this earlier,
Sonia, but go back and evaluate your ideal market or you know, your ideal customer
avatar,
whatever, however, you’ve kind of structured that and defined that in your brand. And how much are
you relying on someone being a default gender or sexuality? Are you assuming or have you made
it explicit?
Sonia:
Okay.
Hank:
Are you assuming that
everyone is gonna be a sick woman or have you made it explicit that
no matter how you identify,
whether you are a cis
–
trans or fem non
–
binary person, we’ve got a
product for you
?
And then go deeper into the psychographics of their needs, wants and desire
s and their fears as
well and, and speak much more to psychographics than demographics because demographics are,
you know, when it comes to being discriminatory like that’s where the discrimination begins is when
you have siloed your messaging to a single
identity.
Sonia:
Yeah. Love it. Okay. I think you, you gave an example already of whenever you were
shopping in the woman like open the fitting room for you. Do you have any other examples of a
specific time when a brand made you feel like he belonged?
IM_Ep 58_How to build an LGBTQ+ inclusive brand.pdf
12
H
ank:
I, yeah. Yeah, I mean I have so many. I was just like, what have
I got?
What have I got for
you? So there is an underwear brand here in Australia that has done, a year
–
long campaign, like
over several years, a campaign around de
–
gendering their underwear.
Sonia:
Wow.
Hank:
And they released a line of underwear that was de
–
ge
ndered and they hired all non
–
binary
models for that campaign. So everyone who was wearing the underwear was non
–
binary and the
y
were essentially saying like,
you can wear this or you can wear that. Doesn’t really matter.
And so that in and of itself, I l
oved then when I actually went on their website, cuz I’ve been following
them for a long time and, really they’re a very large brand. I’ll, I’ll name them, they’re, they’re, the
brand is Bonds.
So if anyone i
n Australia is listening
to
Bonds,
you’ll know
it’s a household name. And I went on their
website and I saw, I went to like, you know, buy some underwear and there was, I can’t remember
whether it was in the dropdown menu or if it was in the description, but somewhere, oh no, it was
the button to purch
ase and the button said buy men’s underwear.
I was like, wait, wait, wait. You’ve just done this whole campaign around the fact that this is de
–
gendered underwear and your button says bye men’s underwear. And I put a thing up on Instagram
and I called them
out, I tagged them, I said, Hey, hang on, you’re doing this campaign, you’re trying
to be gender inclusive and you’ve got this button.
And within an hour they contacted me directly and said, we are so sorry we’re getting this fixed. And
then a couple of h
ours later, I got another message, this has been fixed. It’s, it doesn’t have that
anymore.
Sonia:
Oh, fantastic.
Hank:
And so they are fantastic. They were just on it. And that same da
y, cuz then it got me thinking,
I’m like, I wonder who else is doing
this sort of thing. And Calvin Klein was doing this during pride,
so Calvin Klein was doing a pride collection and they, it wasn’t as explicitly like, this is gender neutral,
but they just said celebrate who you are. But at the top of their campaign, it’s
like men’s
clothing and
women’s clothing,
like those words.
Sonia:
Yeah.
Hank:
And I’m like, this is, you’ve not done the work. And, so I just contrast the two of like, bonds
have done the work. They made a mistake and then fixed it quickly. Right. And t
hen someone like
Calvin Klein, it’s like, I called them out as
well, heard nothing from them,
there was no change, you
know, so yeah. I, it then builds just this level of loyalty to bonds to be like, I wanna support any, any
work that you do in this space
because it’s really important and you speak to me.
Sonia:
Absolutely. I love those examples. Thank you so much for sharing. A lot of pe
ople can learn
a lot from this,
from those where can people find you if they wanna learn more about you, your work,
and
or even just follow along and see those photos from your party?
Hank:
Yes, So I’m at hank paul.co everywhere online. That’s my website. That’s my Instagram. It’s
my TikTok. I’m having a lot of love on TikTok these days actually. So go, go see some of my f
ashion
journey on there.
IM_Ep 58_How to build an LGBTQ+ inclusive brand.pdf